1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to diodes.
2. Discussion of the Related Art
Typically, a semiconductor rectifying diode is a circuit element for converting AC to DC, and a large number of such diodes are used for electrical equipment powered by DC or for the power supplies of electronic equipment. Recently, since most electrical and electronic equipment is now formed by semiconductors, ICs and LSIs, which save energy, it is known to use the Schottky junction diode in place of a P/N junction diode. The Schottky junction diode has a forward voltage drop as low as 0.5 to 0.6 V, and thus has low forward loss, but its reverse leakage current is much greater than that of the P/N junction diode, and so has very high reverse loss. In fact, the total of the forward and reverse losses of the Schottky junction diode is only slightly lower than that of the P/N junction diode. Additionally, it is know that the Schottky junction diode has a fixed band gap. Band gap refers to the energy difference between the top of the valence band and the bottom of the conduction band. Electrons are able to jump from one band to another resulting in high losses when enough energy is applied. Therefore, the above diodes have fixed parameters, such as current, voltage, and so on, because of the fixed band gap, which makes adjusting their use for different applications difficult.
What is needed, therefore, is a diode that can overcome the above-described shortcoming.